Jupiter Ascending

Review Written By: Adolph Vega

3D:

Unfortunately the projector for this movie was slightly out of focus for a majority of the movie and that affected the 3d. I complained to the management and they apologized for the less than stellar 3D performance. That being said the 3d was well presented in them movie’s action scenes. The 3D displayed several objects flying in and out of the background and foreground and popping out of the screen. The camera moves allot in these scenes so it can jarring, but the 3D made this movie more into a ride or videogame in how much fun it was to watch. The 3d is also used to show characters that are closer to the audience than others. One specific scene the villain was so close up that his face was literally in your face and added to the intimidation factor for the character. Overall the 3D is nice and makes for a more entertaining and fun movie watching experience.  

Final Verdict: Good 3D

Movie

Jupiter Ascending is the story of a young woman who is thrown into a strange situation and must cope with learning the truth about humanity and its role in the cosmos. The movie quickly introduces you to the Jones family and the main protagonist Jupiter played by Mila Kunis. Jupiter is living with her mother and extended family and works as a housekeeper to the rich. Jupiter is not happy with this lifestyle and suddenly is thrown into a cosmic melodrama and discovers that she is actually royalty in the universe and quickly finds herself in danger. The movie has dozens of characters that are poorly introduced each of which has suspicious motives that make for a convoluted plot with many plot twists. I think the movie has too many characters it attempts to juggle with names that are hard to pronounce and remember. Several characters within this movie are not given any back-story at all and seem to be on screen for no apparent reason. The acting within this movie is pathetic, and is falls into three traps: way over-the-top, one note characters or is has no personality and seems wooden and generic. Jupiter has romantic feelings for a character within the movie but they have no chemistry and the love affair is totally forced and without merit. The romantic tension they tried to build simply failed because the dialog was poorly delivered and on-screen connection was only written in the script, but never portrayed on screen. I simply didn’t buy this aspect of the movie and felt it was really out of place and unnecessary. Overall the story is more or less filler that is rushed between action set pieces. I did find entertainment value in the action scenes, but since I don’t know much about the characters or what is going on I typically don’t care to the outcome from the action. The movie does on occasion attempt humor but most of the jokes are corny and fall flat. I found it strange that so many of the action scenes repeat themselves, and are essentially Jupiter needing to be rescued or her running in corridors to escape an explosion or fire. Overall I found Jupiter to be a likeable main character, but found her to be too gullible and trusting and her responses seemed too muted for the scenes. The movie is also guilty of having almost every science fiction cliché and stereotype of the past 30 years. I did like the original storyline, but found it so outlandish that it’s hard to keep it grounded and relate to the events or characters within the movie. The movie has so many plot twists and turns that by the time its over I really didn’t care or understand what happened to the characters. Simply put the movie is original in premise but tries too hard to surprise the audience and only barely covers plot points. The movie ends with a strange conclusion that feels rushed and out of place. So many aspects of this movie were poorly handled that the final product that is a mess of action scenes, bad acting and poor storytelling. 

Final Verdict: 4/10

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